The dangerous world of Reel-to-Reel Tape

My friend has an Otari, 15 ips, 2 track, played me Led Zeppelin, holy crap, now I know what they were doing!!!! Best sound I ever heard. Still remember it, probably will never forget it. He's got lots more now for me to hear.

If you have funds and room, go for it.

I have Teac X2000R (their last prosumer deck) 7-1/2" IPS, 4 track pre-recorded tapes, not like 15 ips 2 track, but still that source beats anything here.

i.e. if limited resources, no need to go 15ips, big expensive tapes to move into 'better than what you have'.

however, as noted, pre-recorded content is limited by their era and end of production.

those pre-recorded tapes, 50, some 60 years old surprisingly still sound amazing, no bleed thru, no stretching, the ends can be brittle, I add new leader tape to both ends, to transfer the startup force to the new leader. 

I bought over 500 of them years back, sold 100 of them, only 1 return because it appeared USPS drove a truck over it intentionally.

I know little about R2R machines. But in late 1978, my fiancée and I hosted a party in a flat in Putney that was my girlfriend’s parents’ pied-à-terre, using my (later, but now deceased) father-in-law’s tape deck. A compilation tape made goodness knows how by my wife to be (she hasn’t the faintest idea these days about connecting devices) and a giant beef curry made by my mother-in-law-to-be (also now deceased). I think Jethro Tull and Wishbone Ash were involved. And the only present day effect is that I still have to send Christmas cards to some attendees, who I met for the first time that evening, and have not seen since.

But to be on topic, I think it was a Grundig. And it sat on a shelf above a Thorens turntable and a Sansui receiver. I had only ever handled R2R tapes in my school’s language lab, as we were supposed to be learning French, but actually recorded our burps and played them back to each other. Shameful, I know.

Some of the best sound I have heard came from a well restored Studer A820. There really is no other source besides tape that I have heard that can bring that level of realism. Problem is, and this is why I have not gone down the 'rabbit hole', the price of entry and to play is extremely high these days. If one is into vinyl ( like I am) to add tape and do an ongoing justice to vinyl as well is almost prohibitive, cost wise.

For those who can, I say you have the best of all worlds. Tape is the best source from a SQ perspective.

Ah, Retirement!  Jan 1 2024!  Now I can have some time to play with my toys again.  Back in the dark past when decent R2R was all new and I was single, I bulked up on MoR Teac 6010's and TDK or Maxell tapes.  (I ran an FM station out of my dorm room for a few years and this made it fun...) I now have 4 Teacs and ~2000 tapes to get reacquainted with.   As a Hands-on EE I have a bunch of bench equipment to refurb/upgrade these old friends and expect to spend 2024 there, getting everything up to spec. and putting lots of hours on my headphones.   I also have several other decks to do pre-rolls and check for splices, shedding, etc. before I put any crud or wear on my favorite units.  The Teacs are not TOL by any stretch, but I bought two of them new, and know every mile and insult they have been subjected to. 

Other than refurb parts, I expect the only new purchase Might be a 24-bit A to D converter to dump my tapes onto my 18 TB NAS box as FLACs if I am not happy with the 16/44.1 output of my Parasound Z Phono USB.  I bought the Parasound new a while back to use with my old Dual CS-7000 since the Parasound could disable the RIAA curve so I could use custom curves when playing or recording 78's. Since I have downsized and my entire home is smaller than either my shop  or my living room used to be, all this hardware and media has to go and will be showing up on various forums as I work through it. The world of Reel-to-Reel tape IS dangerous, but what part of this hobby isn't?

@knittersspouse

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement. It can be a the greatest of  times for audio, it sure has been for me.